1. Technical Field
The present application relates to surgical instruments, and more particularly, to surgical clip appliers having a plurality of clips for applying the clips to body tissues and vessels during surgical procedures.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Surgical clip appliers are known in the art and have increased in popularity among surgeons by offering an alternative to conventional suturing of body tissues and vessels. Typical instruments are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,226 to Green et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,668 to Burbank III et al. These instruments generally provide a plurality of clips which are stored in the instrument and which are fed sequentially to the jaw mechanism at the distal end of the instrument upon opening and closing of the handles at the proximal end of the instrument. As the handles are closed, the jaws close to deform a clip positioned between the jaw members, and as the jaws are opened to release the deformed clip, a new clip is fed from the series to a position between the jaws. This process is repeated until all the clips in the series of clips have been used.
Surgical clip appliers are typically available in a variety of sizes and/or scales ranging from relatively small, relatively medium to relatively large. Generally, each particular size of surgical clip appliers includes different components. As such, the method of assembling the various sized surgical clip appliers differs from one size to another.
As a consequence, each different size clip applier requires a different stroke length of external components (e.g., clip applier actuation) that, in turn, affects different timing of internal components (e.g., clip deployment components). The need therefore exists where certain essential components can be configured for each different sized clip applier by only changing geometry without changing functionality.
In addition, the need therefore exists for a surgical clip applier that is configured to accommodate simple internal components that function in a similar fashion as all of the different sized clip appliers, with only changing the geometry of the components. At the same time not compromising a high clip pushing force with low driving force. Better motion and force characteristics and simpler components resulting in better performance of the device.